Recognising a heart that is right with God

One proof that someone has been reconciled with God is a radical change of heart. Our desires and thoughts change, and our habits and relationships change as a result. The Bible describes this as becoming a “new person”. Many things in this world, however, can choke this new life. Slowly, we find our hearts harden and our love for God go lukewarm or even cold. God feels “distant” and there seems to be an invisible dis-connection. How can we be made right before God again?

(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 认识一颗与神同在的心 | 繁體中文 > 認識一顆與神同在的心)

2 Corinthians 5:17-18 NLT  … anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.

Matthew 24:12 ESV  And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Job 9:2,4 ESV  … how can a man be in the right before God? … — who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?

A quick test for our hearts

God examines our hearts because it is the heart that reveals who we really are – not our words or actions, not what others say about us, and not what we think of ourselves. God will reward or judge us accordingly to the condition of our hearts. Unfortunately, we do not have the ability to judge our own hearts objectively and correctly.

Proverbs 27:19 NLT  As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person. 

Jeremiah 17:10 ESV  “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

As a result of being born into a sinful world, our hearts have become desensitized to sin and we have become blinded to many aspects of God’s will and character. Sin is often dressed up in such attractive ways that many are deceived by it. This can be said of every single human being, irrespective of how well regarded or wise we may be. The Bible shows us that every heart needs to be “sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” (confession) and everyone’s body needs to “washed with pure water” (baptism).

Hebrews 10:22 ESV  Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Here is a quick test for whether our hearts are still right with God or not.

1. Is my heart still in awe of God’s Word? | Psalm 119:161 ESV … my heart stands in awe of your words.
2. Does my heart still delight to do God’s will and obey His law? | Psalm 40:8 ESV I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
3. Does my heart fully trust in God’s help and strength? | Psalm 28:7 ESV The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.
4. Is my heart led by God’s wisdom, rather than my own? | Psalm 51:6 ESV Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
5. Is my heart filled with God’s peace? | Colossians 3:15 ESV And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
6. Is my heart filled with God’s joy? | Psalm 97:11 ESV Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.
7. Is my heart filled with God’s compassion for others? | Colossians 3:12 ESV Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts…
8. Is my heart always thankful to God? | Psalm 9:1 ESV I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.

The condition of our hearts is like a barometer. It indicates the condition of our relationship with God. If our hearts are clean and pure, we will live in God’s presence every day and answer “yes” to all of the above.

Psalm 24:3-4 ESV  Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.

If our answer is “no” to any one of the above, however, then we can be sure that something has come in between our beloved God and us, and our hearts need some cleansing and re-tuning.

The cleansing and renewing work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts

God does not leave us struggling on our own. Our good Heavenly Father knows we need His guidance. This is why He sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts and help “steer” us in the right direction back to Him. He is the One who cleanses our hearts and renews our spirits.

2 Corinthians 1:22 NLT  and he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything he has promised us. 

Psalm 51:10 ESV  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

The Holy Spirit is called our Advocate. He comes to support us directly. He does this by giving us wisdom, counselling us when we are down, revealing God’s will and disciplining us so we do not forget to revere God.

Isaiah 11:2 ESV  And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

John 14:26 NLT  But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.  

This is how the Spirit will lovingly regenerate and renew our hearts – if we are willing to seek Him and cooperate with Him on a daily basis with all our heart, not half-heartedly but full-heartedly.

Titus 3:5 ESV  he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

Jeremiah 29:13 ESV  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Also, see
The Holy Spirit as our perfect Counsellor
The role of the Holy Spirit in our salvation
How to test for the Holy Spirit
Living a holy life, free from sin’s power

When we allow God’s Spirit to show us the sin in our hearts and we repent in Jesus’ name, we will find that our hearts will overflow with the good fruit of the Holy Spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Galatians 5:16-17,22-23 NLT  So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires… But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

The mind that resists the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts

The main obstacle that obstructs the Holy Spirit is our fleshly mind.

Romans 8:5-8 ESV  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

The roadmap of the fleshly mind does not naturally lead us to God, because it is based on ideals, opinions, observations, and aspirations that we learn in this world. This world is currently still ruled by Satan, the god of this world, and his influence can be found across commerce, media, education, science, cults and religions, healthcare, philosophy, and so on. Since birth, we have been blindly absorbing Satan’s influences without even realising it.

2 Corinthians 4:4 ESV  In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Moreover, the world exalts the mind. Being seen as “intelligent” is far more important than being seen as simple-minded, for example.

Satan, the father of lies, works to enslave us by corrupting our thoughts so that we find it hard to trust our One True God with childlike “simple-minded” faith in our hearts. When we place our faith in our own intelligence and rational thinking, rather than the Holy Spirit’s counsel, our minds will be easily lead astray from a sincere and pure devotion to God by the devil.

John 8:44 ESV  You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

2 Corinthians 11:3 NIV  But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

This is one reason why Jesus said that we need to re-set our thinking to be like a child’s so that His Spirit can teach us how to think and live all over again. This is how we receive His Kingship and kingdom into our hearts. There is much un-learning to do and re-learning to catch up on!

Mark 10:15 ESV  Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

But if we allow our fleshly, worldly thoughts to over-rule over our hearts, we will become disconnected to the Holy Spirit once again. We suppress His voice and quench God’s living Spirit in our hearts. 

1 Thessalonians 5:19 ESV  Do not quench the Spirit.

This is why some people say they “know” God loves them but don’t “feel” His love. The reason is that they have quenched the Holy Spirit in their hearts by listening to their fleshly minds.

Romans 5:5 says “we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.” When the Holy Spirit fills our hearts with God’s love, we can be sure to feel it too. Each time our minds disobey the Holy Spirit and sin, the more distant our hearts feel from God.

Romans 5:5 NLT  .. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Isaiah 59:2 ESV  But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

A corrupted mind will display some of the following traits:

• Intellectual arrogance: We trust in our own intelligence to figure things out for ourselves. Our self-reliance, independence, and pride deceive us into thinking we are doing the “right thing” when we are suppressing the Holy Spirit. | Proverbs 28:26 ESV Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.
• Logical compensation of uncomfortable emotions: We use our minds to rationalise away our anxieties, numb how we truly feel, and use our intellect to enforce another preferred state-of-mind instead. We tell ourselves things are okay inside us when they are not. We don’t allow the Holy Spirit to minster to us or allow ourselves time to cry or grieve, laugh or dance. We use our minds to lie to, suppress, and deny our hearts. We don’t realise that we are falling back into spiritual death. | Ecclesiastes 3:1,4 NLT For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.
• Rationalisation of sin: We think of various arguments to justify our sins so we don’t have to repent or obey God’s Word. We harden our hearts against the Holy Spirit’s conviction of our sin. | James 4:17 NIV If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
• Pursuit of truth, justice, and knowledge: We seek to uphold truth and justice more than we seek to love God or love others (the first two and greatest commandments), forgetting that we ourselves are recipients of God’s grace. We use knowledge as a means to exalt ourselves or judge others, rather than to show God’s mercy and grace. We grieve the Holy Spirit in the process. | 1 Corinthians 13:2 NLT …. if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

Remove strongholds around the heart through deliverance 

If we have been faithfully seeking God with all our hearts and still feel obstructed from growing closer to Him, we ought to consider deliverance from evil spirits.

Even if we make every effort to keep our “whole spirit and soul and body blameless”, there are often iniquities that our forefathers have not repented of and renounced that give evil spirits footholds to continue to operate in our bloodlines. This is how Holy Spirit-filled believers can still host evil spirits that hide in our bodies, even after we have received Jesus Christ as our Saviour and invited the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. Evil spirits cannot possess us because we belong to Jesus Christ, He is the One who owns us, but they can seek to kill, steal and destroy our spiritual inheritance from God.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 ESV  Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV  Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

John 10:10 ESV  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

To explain this further, Jesus came to establish a new covenant with us, paid with His blood. At the same time, our families may have made covenants with evil spirits (in disguise as various gods) in previous generations through idol worship and witchcraft. They may even have been involved with emperor or ancestor worship. Such worship usually involves sacrifices too, whether in time, words, animals, blood, money etc. Such covenants have legal standing for three to four generations, according to God’s Ten Commandments — until they are broken in Jesus’ name.

Exodus 20:4-5 ESV  “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,

Deliverance from evil spirits is not a matter of how nice we try to be or how hard we try to avoid demons. It is a legal issue, a matter of the Law in the spirit. We should take our spiritual enemies to court and expel them from our lives in Jesus’ name. This will not only release us to experience greater fruit of the Spirit, it will also protect our next generation from their invasion. There is no shame in seeking deliverance, it is not for “bad” people, it is a right for every believer! Jesus came to set us free from spiritual bondage.

Testimony: A transforming heart through inner healing and deliverance 

“I was seeking God wholeheartedly but experienced difficulties in concentrating while reading the Bible or listening to sermons. I also felt easily distracted with flashes of distracting thoughts, so I signed up for deliverance.

As I was repenting of my past idol worshipping and involvement with occult practices and influences, as guided by the Holy Spirit, I began to burp as the spirits were expelled. This noticeably subsided when my prayers moved away from “cleaning up” my past occult involvements. My mind became clearer and those who prayed for me said that my bloated waistline seemed to shrink too! Thank God for the authority and power of Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit then showed me that I was holding part of myself from God. I had a tendency to run ahead of God’s guidance. I still harboured fear which drove a lot of my actions. I used to think that “I will take care of things”, “I will provide for my family” and things would be better under my watch. By thinking these thoughts (inner vows), I have overlooked the fact that Jesus is in charge of all things. He is the one who provides whether these are material matters or happiness.

I was guided to repent on the inner vows I had made and sought our God’s forgiveness for such inner vows. Inner vows are like contracts or promises we make about ourselves. They represent us choosing our will over God’s and need to be revoked before we can experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes the transformation may not be immediately noticeable, but I have moved from being a person that could not shed a tear to a person who now gets all teared up from a sad movie or event – an indication that the wall I had built around my heart is being dismantled. I am just grateful to God’s love and grace for allowing me to be on a path towards freedom. I continue to seek Him and am open to further deliverance, to remove whatever strongholds that can keep me from seeing and knowing God in my heart.”

May this sharing be a blessing to you as you seek to love God with all your heart and renew your body, soul and spirit in Jesus’ name.

Also, see
How our hearts subconsciously block God out
Emotional suppression is ungodly and harmful
Denial as a defence mechanism destroys
Testing for idols in our hearts
Testing our hearts for a healthy fear of God
How to prepare our hearts to hear from God